On Gaga:“The reason I did the ‘Paparazzi’ video is that the director, Jonas Akerlund, is a fellow Swede and a good friend of mine, and he called and asked me to do it. At the time, I didn’t know Lady Gaga’s work or her music very well, so I looked her up, and I thought, “Oh, this is pretty interesting.”

On a tendency toward dark projects:“I just did this animated film, ‘Metropia,’ that’s such a dark, dystopian sci-fi tale. And I have [Lars von Trier’s sci-fi disaster flick] ‘Melancholia’ coming up. There’s got to be something disturbing in the story for me to be interested — it’s probably something I need to talk to my shrink about!”

Check out the gallery of Skarsgard in various states of undress from True Blood and be on the lookout for Kelly’s recaps on Mondays!